Kumeyaay - The American Entry
By : Mike Connolly
Campo Tribe
In October of 1846, the whaling ship Stonnington landed at San Diego and a force of Americans entrenched themselves near one of the outlets for the San Diego River into the Bay. The Mexicans sealed off the area and drove off any livestock from the surrounding area. The American force faced being starved out until an Indian ally volunteered to try to slip through the enemy lines. The unidentified Indian went thirty-five miles down the coast and returned with 600 sheep which he slipped through the Mexican lines by going to Coronado island and driving the sheep across the bay on a sand bar at low tide and to the American forces.
Their food supply now secured, the Americans were able to survive the siege until the USS Congress brought Commodore Stockton and Captain Gillespie with forty Marines and California Volunteers came to reinforce them. Commodore Stockton secured the town and had a fort built on the hill overlooking Old Town. The fort was named Fort Stockton. General Kearney crossed Warner’s pass in December of 1846, after marching 1600 miles in one of the longest military marches in history.
Kumeyaay leaders were already aware of his coming from messenger runners from the Colorado River. They met with him and offered their assistance in fighting the Mexicans. General Kearney declined and told the leaders it would be best if they stayed out of the fight. Sixty miles away, Andres Pico led his force of seventy-five Mexicans out of Soledad Valley on the road to San Pascual. Gillespie and his Volunteers pushed up from Mission and El Cajon Valleys to join with Kearney. The Mexican forces met the Americans near the Kumeyaay village at San Pasqual. The Indians took their families to the hills as the forces clashed.
The American casualties were high, almost a third killed or wounded with minimal casualties to the Mexicans. The American forces then took up defensive positions at Mule Hill. Three messengers (one an Indian servant of an American from San Diego), slipped through the Mexican lines and got word to San Diego of General Kearney’s plight. On the 10th of December reinforcements arrived from San Diego and General Kearney’s force was escorted to San Diego. The dispirited Mexicans began to surrender, or faded into the hills in small bands. Indian people took this opportunity to launch some of their own retribution for the years of Mexican oppression. In Pauma Valley, eleven Mexicans were captured and executed by the Luiseno. In the closing days of the war a group of Mexicans avenged the deaths of their comrades by launching an attack on Pauma Valley destroying men, women and children in a battle that cost the Pauma people half their population. On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, thereby, ending the Mexican-American War.